Mumbai University has asked all engineering colleges for the original copy of their supervisory report, a register that maintains the details of students who were present for the exam and those who skipped it.

Sources said the varsity wants to verify the count of answer books that are in stock and those that have gone missing. It is believed that some answersheets have been smuggled out but have not been brought back to the exam house. The missing answer booklets could also give some additional information and lead to netting of more agents and university staff members involved in the scam.

On Sunday , the Bhandup police said engineering papers were smuggled out of the university, handed out to students through agents and brought back to the campus after students wrote the answers at home.

“We are in progress of collecting and calculating the answer books from various colleges. Also we are in the process of calculating the number of answer books that are in the university,“ said a university official.

The modus operandi of the agents was such that once a university clerk walked out of the exam house at 6.30 pm with the answersheets, he would hand them over to an agent, who in turn would give them to students so that they could fill the answers. The booklets were then collected and returned to the clerk who would place them back in the exam house's strong room by 2 am.

Answerbooks were smuggled out were largely of students spread across 20 exam centres in Navi Mumbai, said vicechancellor Sanjay Deshmukh in a press conference on Thurs
day. The scam exposed a large number of loopholes in the exam system that need plugging.

“Ours is a large exam system and we sometimes takes two to three days to collect answer books from the internal regions. If we tighten our delivery system, 90% of our problem will be solved,“ said Deshmukh.He added that checking everyone who enters and exits the exam house and frisking them was also another measure that would cut down on leakages.

Installing CCTV cameras and other gadgetry is high on the administration's list as it has realized that while it faces a huge manpower shortage, technology will in some way help.

No action yet in 2015 engg scam

The engineering exam scam brought to focus a previous scam that had rocked the university, wherein paanwala Arun Munappa Salian ran a racket to doctor degree marksheets outside the Kalina campus. However, an inquiry against accused employees is still pending. Ten months after the scam, the probe has not led officials anywhere and all these employees are back on campus, said VC Sanjay Deshmukh. TNN